Markups Begin. Congressional markups of the fiscal year 2019 defense authorization bill begin at the House Armed Services Committee on April 26. The committee’s six subcommittees will take up the legislation, starting with readiness at 9 a.m., emerging threats and capabilities at 10 a.m., military personnel at 11 a.m., tactical air and land forces at 12:30 p.m., seapower and projection forces at 1:30 p.m. and strategic forces at 3 p.m. The full committee will mark up the bill May 9.
DoD Hearings. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman and Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford and Pentagon Comptroller David Norquist are scheduled to testify at two congressional hearings in two days during the last full week of April. The trio will appear before the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel on April 25 and the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on April 26. On April 24, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein will go before the SASC, while Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson and Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller will testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense panel.
Space Speed. The Air Force said it expects that an ongoing restructuring of its Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) will cut the time it takes to build the next generation of missile-warning satellites from nine years to five. Under the restructuring, the Air Force is creating a chief architect to look across the entire space enterprise. In addition, SMC is setting up teams to focus on innovation, partnerships, prototyping and using commercial space.
White House Cyber Report. The White House on April 19 delivered a congressionally-mandated report to Congress that addresses U.S. policy for cyberspace, cyber security and cyber warfare. The White House says it isn’t releasing the report publicly. The report was directed in the fiscal year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, which also fenced some spending by the White House Communications Agency and Situation Support Staff until it was submitted to Congress. A White House official told Defense Daily via email that report “discusses the challenges our Nation is facing in cyberspace, what the Administration has already accomplished to address those challenges; and the Administration’s plans to continue addressing those challenges.”
Launch Window. The Coast Guard’s first ever satellites are slated for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 this fall sometime between Sept. 30 and Oct. 30. The two small Polar Scout cubesats will be used to demonstrate their capabilities for search and rescue missions in the Arctic region and help the service develop a long-term roadmap for satellites across a broader mission set. The Falcon 9 rideshare mission is called SSO-A and will launch many small satellites from a number of countries in a sun-synchronous orbit. The payload stack is being integrated by Spaceflight Industries. Millennium Engineering, Raytheon, Rincon Research Corp. and Utah State’s Space Dynamics Laboratory are developing and assembling the Polar Scouts for the Coast Guard. The Falcon 9 will launch from Vandenberg Air Force AFB, Calif.
3D-Print Repair. A deployed Marine Corps fighter squadron successfully flew an F-35B with a 3D-printed part instead of using time-consuming and expensive conventional repairs. On April 16, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 successfully flew an F-35B Lightning II aircraft with a part that was supplied by a CLB-31 3-D printer. The F-35B’s landing gear door plastic bumper was wearing out during recent training missions. Though a small and simple part, the only conventional means of replacing the bumper was to order the entire door assembly — a process that’s time-consuming and expensive. Using a newly released process from Naval Air Systems Command for 3-D printed parts, the squadron prints the bumper, approved for use and installed within a matter of days — much faster than waiting for a replacement part to arrive from the United States, according to the Marine Corps.
Light Tanks. Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory developed and successfully tested a novel process called Friction Stir Dovetailing that joins thick plates of aluminum to steel. The new process will be used to make lighter-weight military vehicles that are more agile and fuel efficient. To lower fuel costs and increase operational effectiveness while still maintaining the safety of military personnel, the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) is investigating Friction Stir Dovetailing. Previous techniques included Friction Stir Welding to join similar metals of differing thickness, and Friction Stir Scribe, which joins thin sheets of significantly different materials, like aluminum and steel. While Friction Stir Scribe solved the challenge of joining thin sheets of aluminum with steel, that technique was found to not scale up to the thick plates of aluminum — measured in inches — needed for robust military vehicles. The research team now plans to refine the technique and expand the process for other joint configurations. In addition to aluminum and steel, other material combinations such as aluminum to copper, aluminum to magnesium, and magnesium to steel can also be joined using Friction Stir Dovetailing.
Future Vertical Lift. Army Lt. Gen. Paul Ostrowski, director of the Army Acquisition Corps, said the two teams participating in the Joint Multirole Technology Demonstration (JMR-TD) – Bell Helicopter and Lockheed Martin , and Sikorsky and Boeing – have spent a collective $450 million on developing the two prototype air vehicles vying to replace the Army’s legacy rotorcraft. The Army has put in about $90 million. Ostrowski also said that more than likely the Army will consider the V-280 Valor and the SB-1 Defiant as experimental aircraft rather than operational prototypes, meaning the Army will look to purchase certain technologies proven by the air vehicles, not necessarily one or the other design. “Are they experimental or are they prototypes? We hope for the latter, but think they may be experimental,” he told the House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.
Faster Navy Review Changes. Adm Phil Davidson, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces, told a Senate panel last week the Vice Chief of Naval Operations (VCNO) is trying to get new investments in the Navy to address recommendations from the Comprehensive and Strategic Readiness Reviews. The reviews come in light of the deadly summer 2007 destroyer collisions involving the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) and USS John S. McCain (DDG-56). Davidson said the VCNO gave guidance at a recent Navy meeting “to try to get some of the investments that were targeted further to the right in the FYDP, you know in the out years, moved left, and he’s having meetings this month to see what we might be able to produce and achieve sooner investment to get these things done.” Davidson comments were during his confirmation hearing to lead Pacific Command.
…And Vietnam Cooperation. Davidson also reiterated the U.S. is in discussions with Vietnam on a range of issues, following the transfer of the Hamilton-class cutter Morgenthau last May. “We’ve been working with Vietnam on a code of conduct for operations at sea, which I think has been an important opportunity to build on. It might raise some confidence in the security amongst the South China Sea Rim nations. I think this is an incredible opportunity for us.”
Navy Readiness In Early ‘20s. Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) John Richardson told a Senate panel he thinks the Navy can get back to an acceptable sustainable level of readiness by the early 2020s. “It took some time, a decade, to get into this. We anticipate getting out in about half the time. So I look to the early 2020s–’21 and ’22–to start getting back to that level of readiness.” Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer offered a similar timeline on infrastructure readiness. He said the service is coming up on 80 percent of the military construction needs funded much higher than in recent budgets. To get back to infrastructure readiness he said, “you’re probably looking at the same readiness as with the fleet, which is in the early 2020s.” The officials testified during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
Neller For MCM. Gen. Robert Neller, Commandant of the Marine Corps, told a Senate panel in written testimony that Mine Countermeasure (MCM) capabilities are consistently underfunded, affecting the joint force’s ability to operate in littoral waters. He said the FY ’19 budget request extends the service life of four MCM systems, but the military must accelerate future capability to ensure MCM coverage. “If the naval force possessed the capability to easily overcome layered mine defense in contested near-seas, such as the South and East China Seas, through a more robust MCM capability, then we would in effect be attacking the adversary’s A2AD strategy. This would demonstrate our ability to penetrate their defenses at a time and place of our choosing, and force them to revalidate assumptions, change decisions, and invest in other more costly capabilities.” He also supports exploring accelerating building the planned America-class LHA-9, which can begin within the out-years of the FYDP.
DoD Cloud. DoD officials reaffirmed last week that their pending multi-billion cloud migration effort will be conducted with fair and open competition, amid industry concerns that the contract is constructed for the likes of Amazon Web Services. “It is a single-award contract. It is not a sole-source contract, and is not designed with a specific vendor or company in mind,” DoD spokesperson Dana White said during a Thursday press briefing. White’s statement comes after DoD published the second draft of its RFP for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) program. The latest RFP comes with a memo from Lt. Col. Kaight Meyers, JEDI program manager, who confirmed the first contract period for JEDI is only two years and further capability needs will be assessed after that period.